Stakes in the Ground, and a Populist's Grandfather

Thomas Jaworek is the conservative mayor of Kallstadt Germany, where Friedrich was born and then left as a teenager. The mayor said that if our president were to visit, he hoped he would at least leave Kallstadt with a changed view on migration, citizenship AND BELONGING. After all, Friedrich was a migrant. 

Born in 1869 into a modest family that ran a small vineyard, Friedrich initially worked in a barbershop in a neighboring town. But opening his own barbershop in Kallstadt proved difficult. There already was a barber in town. Friedrich was also expected under German law to serve in the military for some time.

“The stifling lack of opportunity in the village seemed to close in on him. Without any apparent opportunity for a better life, he saw what lay ahead was dreary, difficult, and poor,” author Gwenda Blair wrote. “He seemed to have no choice but to leave."

The 16-year-old found his escape by migrating to the United States, where he arrived in 1885.

He later came back and married a Kallstadt local, Elizabeth Christ, but eventually returned to the United States. Local authorities considered him to be a draft dodger.

My Mother's immigrant German ancestor did a similar thing. As soon as he was naturalized in Wisconsin, he made a beeline back to Germany and brought back an apparent sister, within a month. He had also left that land due to the military requirement that he didn't want. (I am told that while there, his wife - descendant of an early American Culver Pilgrim - bore twins in a situation we know nothing about.)

More than a century on, one of his grandsons is pursuing a hard-line immigration policy that — if it had been in place in the 1880s — would have likely disqualified Friedrich from staying in the United States.

Now, after his racist tweets targeting four critical minority lawmakers, some residents said he is not welcome and that even his distant link to the town is a source of embarrassment. Beatrix Riede, 61, who heads an association for women in the town, said, “I can only wish Americans that they will elect someone who turns on his mind before saying something,”

t's about stakes in the ground, and our attitude, now that we are here.